


old ties & companions

by inconocible



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game), Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: All the OC adult children, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bittersweet, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Found Family, Gen, Look I know none of this is canon but!, M/M, One Shot, Order 66 flashback, ROS speculation, Set sometime before the start of ROS, Unbetaed and posted at 4 am as one does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21858802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: The two young men shake hands, the Force sparkles and ripples around them, Cal’s bond with Jaro sings, crescendos with excitement and curiosity and belonging and happiness, and Cal feels the oddest, most certain sense of home that he’s felt since leaving Bogano, and maybe since before that.“Oh,” Jacen breathes out, not letting go of Jaro’s hand.or: the Kestis clan and the Orrelios-Syndulla clan, meeting at the end of all things.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios, Cal Kestis & Jaro Tapal, Cal Kestis & OC, Cal Kestis/Merrin, Hera Syndulla & Jacen Syndulla
Comments: 17
Kudos: 88
Collections: Rebels ROS Event





	old ties & companions

**Author's Note:**

> _the tunes we've carried through the years will change  
>  and man that's just enough  
> to keep these ghosts around those haunted fields  
> like old ties and companions  
> you and i were just [passing through](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnGNxx78RA8)_

Something’s wrong with the escape pod. The strange noise -- it -- it just doesn’t sound right.

Cal chances a look up, bravely glances at the lights flashing on the control panel of the escape pod. He could get up, could try to pilot the craft down to a suitable spot on the planet’s surface, but he feels frozen to the passenger’s seat, feels like if he moves, he’ll explode.

Anyway, the lights flashing all look more or less normal, at least as far as he can tell, as much as he can remember about how the operating system of this pod is supposed to work, the lesson hard to recall around the searing pain in his head, the gaping wound in his mind. 

But he’s positive -- he’s _sure_ \-- that this escape pod shouldn’t be making that noise, not like that.

He darts his eyes around the perimeter of the pod -- anywhere but down -- checking for failed hatch seals, watching for the rush of space into the pod, but everything seems fine. It’s fine, he’s fine, the pod is fine, but -- the sound --

Cal finally, finally, swallows thickly, takes a heavy breath, looks down, down to check the condition of the pod’s floor, but he can’t -- he can’t not see -- and --

Oh, Force -- the sound is -- is the pain in his head the wound in his mind the broken bond in his psyche the echoes of death all around him in the Force overwhelming him the tears streaming down his cheeks the ache in his throat the -- _oh_ \-- Force, the sound, is -- _him_ \--

The pod rockets to the surface and lands with a hard thud and Cal tumbles out of the chair and onto the floor with the force of the impact, aware of himself screaming but with no idea what to do, how to stop, until suddenly he runs out of breath, out of air, out of fight, out of muscle, out of bone, and goes limp, gasping and sniffling, on the floor beside Master Tapal’s body.

Cal can’t avoid the physicality of Master Tapal’s body, the reality of his death, the way he takes up so much of the floor space. He gasps for air and shivers on the floor, trying not to touch him, trying to make a plan, trying to figure out what to do, but he’s distracted by -- by how cold he is. He feels unbelievably cold, Cal realizes suddenly, he’s shaking and shivering and he doesn’t know what to do and he isn’t sure if the cold is the climate of the planet’s surface or the grip of his emotions, of the swirl of the dark side of the Force around his consciousness, of the gaping, howling space in his mind where his master, their bond, should be. 

A faint warmth radiates from Master Tapal’s body. Lasat run hotter than humans, Master has always been warm, comfortable, familiar, and Cal, exhausted, tries to pretend, crawls on his hands and knees up to wedge himself under Master’s heavy, still-warm arm, curls into him, closes his eyes and tries to ignore the smell of carbon and blood, tries to sink into his memories and the Force, tries to pretend they’re back in their apartment in the Temple, the apartment that always smells like sandalwood and patchouli and Lasan cooking and Master and _home_. 

Cal snuggles into his master’s body, crying softly until he drifts off into an uneasy sleep, his utter physical and mental exhaustion dragging him under to thoughts of the last time they did this, several months ago, encamped fighting the Seppies on a world made of ice and snow. The troopers had given Cal an extra thermal blanket that night, but Cal had still been miserably cold, shivering and shaking until Master Tapal had come to him, had lifted him strong and gentle from his cot like a little youngling, had brought him to his own cot, had covered them both in his cloak and the thermal blankets and had held him close. “You’re no good in the field with frostbitten fingers, Padawan,” he had rumbled, his chest rising and falling against Cal’s, warm and rhythmic and calm like a big tooka, loving, protective, a rare moment of quiet care, until Cal had fallen asleep tucked under his arm --

Cal’s mind jerks out of the moment into another moment, and it’s pain it’s death it’s panic it’s the blaster bolts it’s his friends shooting them at him it’s Master is saying Cal! The door controls, Cal -- ! 

Cal wakes up screaming, curled up next to Master’s body, but Master is cold and dead and -- 

Cal wakes up screaming.

“Afi?”

Cal sits up in bed, gasping, running his hands over his hair.

“Afi?” 

Jaro -- Jaro Einarsson, strong in the Force and in the healing arts, grandson of fallen Jedi Cal Kestis and Nightsister Merrin, son of Healer Nightdaughter Tril Kestis and New Republic Army Healer Corps Commander Einar Jonsson, son of Bogano, bearer of the names of the strongest two men Cal has ever met -- is standing in the doorway of the ship’s cabin, calling him, both with his voice and in their bond.

There is pressure on his feet; BD’s laying down on them. Cal reaches for it, for the sensation, trying to ground himself.

“Afi Cal?” Jaro walks into the cabin. “I felt --” he shakes his head. “Are you alright?”

Cal tries to leave the moment, the thought, behind, tries to reach for his bond with Jaro, tries to open his eyes and see his grandson, a strong young adult now, the single person Cal’s connected with, loved, the deepest, since life after the Jedi -- loves him, connects with him, even more deeply than with Merrin or Tril -- but he can’t calm his breathing, can’t stop seeing the fire of his master’s makeshift funeral pyre on the back of his eyelids -- 

“Hey, Afi,” Jaro says, coming closer, sitting on the edge of Cal’s bunk, concern and affection swirling in their bond. “We’re almost there.”

Cal sighs, comforted by his grandson’s presence, sending a pulse of gentle appreciation through their bond. “Alright,” he says.

“I’m making caf,” Jaro offers. He stands, tilts his head at Cal.

“Alright,” Cal says again. “Alright, I’m up.”

*

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jaro had asked. 

“No,” Cal had said, lowering himself into the booth, feeling BD settle once more at his feet.

“Well, we’ve got about another hour,” Jaro had said, and he had left Cal sitting in the kitchenette to check on things in the cockpit.

The thing was -- Cal had wanted to talk about it, in a way. In another way, he’d never wanted to think about that moment again, much less talk about it. 

It’s the journey, he thinks. The first time leaving Bogano, for any reason, in -- years. The journey has him rattled, is dredging up things better left unremembered.

The journey.

When Einar -- who had been part of the family for nearly 20 years now but had never been content to settle, had been on-again-off-again through the decades with Tril and the family and Bogano -- had commed, had begged for Jaro, his barely grown-up son, to lend aid to this, this last stand of the Resistance against the First Order -- well.

Jaro -- Jaro, a sparkling bright point in the Force, who fits Cal like a glove and a hand, like a verse and a refrain, like a call and an echo, like a spring garden and a thunderstorm -- had immediately promised his father his aid. Jaro, whose soul resonates sweet and clear with Cal’s in the Force, who was the only student Cal had ever agreed to train, had said, “Of course we’ll come.”

“And who is we?” his grandmother had asked. Her power had always been rooted in the land, from the sands of Dathomir to the grasses of Bogano, and Cal had known that Merrin, his devoted friend and partner over so many years, would not leave their home. 

“My Afi and I,” Jaro had said, confident as ever. 

And so Tril and Merrin had stayed, to protect their home and their land, and to lend aid after the fighting ended -- or so Tril had promised Einar -- and Cal and Jaro and an aging BD-1 had packed up as much firepower and as many medical supplies as they could from their home’s supplies and had set course for the rendezvous point, a small planet Cal had never heard of, so far into the Outer Rim that it was practically in Wild Space.

Cal had never wanted to wield the Force, like he heard some were doing, now, in public. He had kept it close, these past decades. The Force flowed strong in his family, and in their land, through the grasses and mountains of Bogano, and it had been as natural as breathing for Cal and Jaro to establish a training bond, like and yet so unlike the one Cal had had with Master Tapal, so many years ago. Bogano was home, Merrin was home, Tril and Einar’s comings and goings and healing work were home, Jaro’s constant, bright presence was home.

The Force was, as it had been when he was a small boy, home, close to him, within him, surrounding him.

Home is both here and not here, hurtling through hyperspace on this journey, on the way to an unknown planet to help people he’d never met, as a healer and, more importantly, as a Jedi -- all because Jaro had said, “We’ll come.” Home is not hyperspace, the unknown, but it is the way the Force wraps around him, the way Jaro nudges at his mind in their bond to let him know he’s coming.

“Twenty minutes until we drop into sub-light,” Jaro calls down the hall. He walks into the kitchenette, crosses the small space, refills his caf mug.

“Jaro,” Cal says. He holds his hand out, lays it palm-up on the table, sighs. “It was -- I dreamed of things I haven’t in -- maybe 30 years.”

Jaro, who reads echoes in the Force as clear as reflections in a pool -- clearer, even, than Cal himself -- sits in the small booth beside him. “When it all ended,” Cal says, quietly, and Jaro lays his hand in Cal’s, the memories, the dream, the feelings -- everything passing between them in the Force, along their bond. 

He had told him bits and pieces, had told him some of the good things about his namesake, about Master Tapal, but he had never told him -- _shown_ him -- everything, not like this.

At length, Jaro sighs, leans closer to Cal, rests the side of his head against his grandfather’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Afi,” he whispers.

*

When they’d landed, they’d been assigned a parking space and told to send a representative to check in at the _Ghost_ \-- and, for all of Jaro’s sense of adventure, they’d agreed that Cal -- with BD perched on his shoulder, as always -- should go first.

Cal walks through the rows of ships, soaking in the unfamiliar feeling of so many beings congregated in one place, something he hasn’t felt in years. He’s been getting casual directions as he walks, and he should be getting close, but something in the Force sings to him, stops him in his tracks.

Well, perhaps it’s something in the Force, but perhaps it’s the distinctive smell of a spice blend and something cooking and incense burning, sandalwood and patchouli, drifting out of the open ramp of a ship, drawing him in. 

”Hello?” Cal calls out, and a young human woman, only a little older than Jaro, emerges quickly, tilts her head curiously at him, and he suddenly doesn’t know what to say, isn’t sure how to explain.

“Hello,” he says, “I -- uh, I’m looking for the _Ghost_ , they told me --” 

“Oh,” she says, “yeah, the _Ghost_ is right down there.” She points vaguely. “My cousin Jacen is there now, he can help you. Just ask for him, Jacen Syndulla, everyone knows him.”

“Thank you,” Cal says. “Uh -- I’m Cal Kestis,” he adds, compelled to linger, to ask something more, drawn in, so drawn in, by the smell of the food cooking inside that drifts down the ship’s lowered ramp. “I’ve gotta say, your Lasan shaak? Smells delicious. I -- I haven’t had it since I was a boy. Compliments to the chef.”

She raises her eyebrows, smiles. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m Lira, Lira Kallus Orrelios,” she says. A young, similarly-aged Lasat male walks down out of the ship, a datapad in his hands. “And this is my brother, Bridger Kallus Orrelios, though we mostly just call him Bridge,” she adds. “The chef.”

“Your -- ?” Cal asks, confused. How -- ?

“He’s adopted,” Lira says, while at the same time Bridge says, ”She’s adopted,” in perfect harmony, like a long practiced act, and they both laugh. 

“He says he likes your cooking,” Lira says to Bridge, and Bridge laughs. 

“Well, thank you, sir,” Bridge says.

A beat passes, the three of them looking at one another in increasingly awkward silence. Bridge clears his throat, tilts his head at Cal.

Cal sighs, presses his hand to his mouth, shakes his head at himself. “Forgive a sentimental old man,” he says. “I haven’t seen a Lasat since I was young, and, and the one who I knew -- I loved, very much,” Cal says, something in his old eyes misting over, something in his old throat catching, something about his dream on the way here, the memory of Master Tapal’s love and death casting a shadow over his clarity of mind.

“Oh, we’re still around,” Lira says. “Flourishing, actually.”

“Want to see another one?” Bridge asks, cracking a big, crooked grin, and Lira rolls her eyes, props a slim hand on her hip as Bridge turns his head back toward the ship, hollers, “Hey, Dad, come here!”

A human man who has to be at least a decade older than Cal walks down the ramp of the ship, with a bit of a limp but an alertness in his eyes and a set to his shoulders that speak of a lifetime of fighting. On his heels is a tall, proud Lasat man, who looks both, at once, regal as the royalty of old, and achingly bone tired. The human ruffles a hand through his snow-white hair, frowns a bit at Cal, while the Lasat raises an eyebrow, touches the bo-rifle slung over his back out of instinct. His purple fur has gray streaks running through, and he wears a gray ponytail down his back, and Cal is overwhelmed. 

“Hey, Dad, this is Cal Kestis, and he said he hasn’t seen a Lasat since he was young, can you believe that?” Bridge starts, glancing up at the older Lasat, energy and teasing in his tone. “Almost as though he’s never been in a cantina in the Border Systems or something.” He whuffs out a laugh.

“Garazeb Orrelios,” the Lasat says to Cal, ignoring his son, holding himself proud and strong. “And my husband, Alexsandr Kallus,” he adds, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You said -- Kestis?”

Cal nods, bows at the waist. “Cal, Cal Kestis. A pleasure,” he says.

“Kestis,” Garazeb says again, rumbling out a “hmmm,” and he frowns, his eyes narrowing, scratches at one ear. 

“Yes,” Cal says, breathing in the scent of the shaak cooking inside, of incense, of _Lasat_ , watching the calculating way Garazeb watches him, an echo of something -- of someone -- long gone. Of home.

Cal misses the way that Alexsandr glances first at Cal and then at his children, the way both of them shrug in response.

“Tapal?” Garazeb finally asks, slowly, cautiously. Cal gasps.

“Yes,” Cal says. “Yes, he -- Master Tapal, he -- he was -- my Master,” Cal says, an old man, a grandfather, a person who would have been considered a Jedi Master in the old times -- and yet troubled and thrilled by the memory of him, by his name spoken by someone else, by the possibilities of connections between this family and his.

Cal tilts his head at Garazeb. “Oh, Orrelios,” he says, with a realization, something long, long ago coming to his mind, a trip to Lasan, once, before the Empire razed it, when he was first apprenticed to Master Tapal. 

“Yeah,” Garazeb says, and he cracks a grin. “Heh, it’s small galaxy. Come in, stay for supper, Cal.”

Cal nods. “Let me call my grandson,” he says, reaching for his comm. “Jaro. He’s waiting for me at our ship.” He doesn’t miss the way that Garazeb’s smile widens.

“Just bring him over,” Bridge says. “The more, the merrier.”

“Okay,” Cal says with a smile. “We’re just down the row there; I’ll call him.” He turns to take a step away, to call Jaro.

“Hey, Cal,” Garazeb calls out. Cal turns back. “Name Caleb Dume mean anything to you?”

Cal, again, feels something like shock creep up over him, a ripple in the Force. Distantly, he feels curiosity and concern radiating to him from Jaro, realizes he’s broadcasting his emotions heavy and loud in their bond.

“I haven’t heard that name in -- Force, it’s probably been 50 years,” he says. “We were younglings together, in -- in the Temple.” Cal ruffles a hand through his hair. More survivors, more echoes of home. Still, after all these years, running into or hearing stories of survivors, like him, it still amazes him to hear of them. “Did he really -- is he --?”

Cal is amazed at the easy, fluid way he’s able to read Garazeb’s ears, the droop of them that tells of a long-lasting pain. “No, it’s been -- he’s been gone awhile, now,” Garazeb says. “But there’s someone here you might like to meet.”

Cal nods, makes a decision, lifts his wrist. “Jaro,” he calls, into his communicator.

“Yes, Afi?”

“Meet me at my location,” he says. “We’ve been invited for supper.”

“I’ll be right there,” Jaro says.

“Come in,” Garazeb says. “And call me Zeb.” He turns to Bridge. “Call your cousin,” he says. “I bet Hera hasn’t eaten all day today, anyway.”

*

“Mom,” Jacen calls down the hall as he walks toward the cockpit. “Bridge and Uncle Zeb cooked supper.”

“I’m a little busy, Jace,” Hera calls back, from somewhere inside the _Ghost_ ’s navicomputer. She holds her hand out without looking up. “Give me the three-eighths, maybe that’ll do it,” she says; Sabine sighs, digs in the toolbag for the tiny spanner, hands it over. 

Hera takes the spanner, totally attentive to her work. Jacen leans against the side of the console, looks at Sabine, rolls his eyes. His mom needs to take a break, and the way Sabine nods and rolls her eyes in return tells Jacen she agrees. Some things never change, no matter how old you get, Jacen thinks.

“They made shaak,” Jacen tries.

“Ooh, sounds good,” Sabine says.

“You guys go, then,” Hera says. 

“ _Mom_ ,” Jacen says, more insistently, and Hera huffs at the wires and bolts, lifts her head, pushes her goggles up to her forehead, looks her grown son in his eyes. “There’s someone over there who -- Bridge said -- Bridge said he knew Dad.”

Sabine gasps out a soft, “ _What_?”

Hera stills, narrows her eyes. “How is that even possible anymore?” she says, quiet, thoughtful. “It’s been -- 35 years, I don’t -- ”

“We should go find out,” Sabine says.

Jacen tilts his head at Hera. “Anything is possible, right?”

“Yeah,” Hera says, wiping her hands on her coveralls, tucking the tiny spanner back into the toolbag. “You’re right about that, Spectre-7.”

*

“As I told Zeb, I’m Cal, Cal Kestis. And this is my grandson, Jaro Einarsson,” Cal finishes, presenting Jaro to the strange, extended clan that the Kallus-Orrelios-Syndulla-Wren group seems to be, the familiarity between all of them something that could only be decades of family bonds. They’re standing outside the ship, and the shaak smells so damn good, Cal just wants to get through the introductions and into a chair, desperate, suddenly, to rest his aching knees, to tuck into a bowl of shaak, to get to _know_ these people --

“Hi,” Jaro says.

“I’m Hera Syndulla,” the Twi'lek woman says.

“Sabine Wren,” the human woman says.

“And my son, Jacen Syndulla,” Hera adds, gesturing to the young man who can’t be much more than a decade older than Jaro, his eyes a piercing teal. He shimmers in the Force; Cal wonders if he’s Force-sensitive, if that old name Zeb dragged from the back of his memory, _Caleb Dume_ , if that could be --

“Nice to meet you,” Jacen says. He’s barely looked away from Jaro this entire time, Cal’s noticed. “Are -- are you --” he starts, quietly, almost under his breath. Jacen tilts his head at Jaro.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Jaro says, and he holds his hand out to Jacen.

The two young men shake hands, the Force sparkles and ripples around them, Cal’s bond with Jaro sings, _crescendos_ with excitement and curiosity and belonging and happiness, and Cal feels the oddest, most certain sense of _home_ that he’s felt since leaving Bogano, and maybe since before that.

“Oh,” Jacen breathes out, not letting go of Jaro’s hand. “You are.”

**Author's Note:**

> look, i know none of this is canon, but it was fun imagining it. many thanks to the wonderful [brahe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe) for organizing this challenge and finally getting me to finish a fic for the first time in a year. if you want to yell about rebels on discord with us, dm one of us on [tumblr](https://inconocible.tumblr.com/) <3


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